tear-jerkern.
/ˈtɪəˌdʒəːkə/, U.S. /ˈtɪ(ə)rˌdʒərkər/ colloquial (originally U.S.).
Something calculated to evoke sadness or sympathy, usually a sentimental film, play, song, story, etc. Also applied to a person and, rarely, to an event.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > aspects of emotion > sentimentality > [noun] > that which appeals to sentimentality
sob story1913
tear-jerker1921
the mind > emotion > aspects of emotion > sentimentality > [noun] > sentimental person > calculating
tear-jerker1921
1921 Double Dealer II. 143/2 But no one today, I believe, mistakes his [sc. James Whitcomb Riley's] productions for anything but somewhat shallow, fairly easy tear-jerkers.
1935 Amer. Mercury Aug. 400/1 A lawyer was imported from California, a magniloquent tear-jerker named Delphin Delmas.
1936 New Yorker 7 Mar. 32/2 ‘Love on the Dole’ turns out to be far more than a conventional tear-jerker.
1940 Manch. Guardian Weekly 27 Sept. 212 The German description of the torpedoing of the evacuee ship as a ‘tear-jerker’ recalls Geobbels's clumsy attempt to deny the torpedoing of the Athenia at the beginning of the war.
1948 Sunday Pictorial 18 July 11/3 The cameos are linked with a quiet humour and smooth pathos which make the film an A-plus tear-jerker.
1953 ‘P. Wentworth’ Watersplash xix. 109 Three copies of the famous East Lynne. A notorious tear-jerker.
1958 B. Nichols Sweet & Twenties xiv. 187 This number, as sung by Al Jolson, became one of the most efficient tear-jerkers of all time.
1975 Islander (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 9 Feb. 2/3 He concluded [his speech] with a real tear-jerker.
Derivatives
Hence (as back-formations):
ˈtear-jerk n. a sentimental effusion; also as v. transitive.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > aspects of emotion > sentimentality > [noun] > sentimental effusion
tear-jerk1953
the mind > emotion > aspects of emotion > sentimentality > turn into an object of sentiment [verb (transitive)] > excite emotion artificially > calculatingly
tear-jerk1953
1953 Times Lit. Suppl. 31 July 490/5 The ex-Governor of Illinois does not disdain the obvious ‘tear-jerk’.
1961 D. Holbrook Eng. for Maturity i. iv. 55 The vague undefined tear-jerk of popular graveyard and funeral verses.
1962 ‘K. Orvis’ Damned & Destroyed xvi. 123 She tear-jerked it from a drugstore without a prescription.
ˈtear-jerking n. and adj.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > aspects of emotion > sentimentality > [noun] > evoking sentimentality
evocativeness1936
tear-jerking1940
the mind > emotion > aspects of emotion > sentimentality > [adjective] > evoking sentimentality or sadness
tear-jerking1940
1940 S. Lewis Bethel Merriday xv. 127 You..made me understand how much that poor gutter pup longed for a chance to parade, and yet you didn't do much tear-jerking.
1941 E. Snow Battle for Asia iv. 88 I remember a tear-jerking letter from a correspondent appealing for people to boil their garbage and put it beside their ash cans for the hungry— dogs.
1962 W. H. Auden Dyer's Hand (1963) 430 If Homer had tried reading the Iliad to the gods of Olympus, they would..possibly, even, reacting like ourselves to a tear-jerking movie, have poured pleasing tears.
1965 Spectator 5 Feb. 157/3 The prize for tear-jerking seemed..destined for..the Daily Mail.
1979 ‘D. Meiring’ Foreign Body xii. 126 Even he [sc. God] had sometimes needed a hand, and Hussein had provided that brilliantly, in turn cajoling, tear-jerking, and threatening Americans of huge stature in the oil business.
1981 Times 14 Feb. 8/7 An idealized Shavian heroine..the armour-plated, tear-jerking martyr.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1921